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NOVANEWS
By Jesse Bacon
(Boycott Divestment and Sanctions) for what I assume is the first time.
This bold move plants the movement squarely within the more creative
portion of the Jewish establishment, at least as a topic of conversation.
nization, of BDS taboo has backfired. It is the BDS-demonizers who find
themselves increasingly having a conversation with themselves.
Iff you saw my credit at the end of JVP Executive Director
read any of my own work, it should be no surprise where my sympathies lie.
The surprises are only that the New Israel Fund managed to
make an anti-BDS case without the use of epithets or smears. This is not so
surprising when you consider the record of the New Israel Fund, who we have
Jewish organizations when discussing BDS, so much so that BDS supporters
them to refrain from such tactics.
As for the New Israel Fund’s actual arguments I am, unsurprisingly,
less impressed. While the invest in Peace initiatives are perhaps worthy
on their own terms, it is hard to see how they will overturn the juggernaut
that is the Israeli land grab. And then there’s this curious conclusion:
Not a Dead Armadillo
Recently, an NIF board member was invited to speak at a
panel in a community whose food co-op was considering
a boycott of all Israeli products. Literally positioned between
Stand With Us and Code Pink, she described our work and the
alternatives to global BDS offered by the New Israel Fund and
other pro-Israel, progressive organizations. At the end of the
night, she was literally embraced by several audience members,
who were urgently looking for ways to live their progressive
values without shunning Israel as a pariah state, beyond redemption.
While it is nice that their supporters hugged them for providing a
“moderate” alternative, New Israel Fund owes its supporters, of
which I am one, a program that is capable of actually achieving its
goals. New Israel Fund’s grantees are the best hope for Israeli
democracy, but without an internationally engaged BDS movement
they are badly outgunned in a quite literal fashion. I hope that New
Israel Fund will come to see that, but I welcome being friendly adversaries
with them on this question. If only all groups were engaged in sucha
good faith effort to determine the most ethical and effective way to support
freedom and equality in Israel-Palestine.
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